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Blue Engine String Quartet

September 12th, 2011

The Blue Engine String Quartet was formed in 1997 as the core ensemble of the Nova Scotia chamber music series, Blue Engine Music. The Quartet members are all members of Symphony Nova Scotia. They have been the musicians in residence at the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts, Acadia University and in 2003- 04 were the musicians in residence of the St. Cecilia Chamber Series.

While Blue Engine holds true to classical roots performing many of the masterworks of the string quartet repertoire, the Quartet has also worked closely with important contemporary Canadian composers, most notably Christos Hatzis, Brian Current, Peter Togni and Tony Genge. They are also proud to champion works by women composers, Amy Beach, Fanny Mendelssohn, Doreen Carwithen to name but a few. The Quartet has also premiered works that were repressed by the Nazis or hidden away during the Holocaust. The Quartet is frequently featured as guest artists on Maritime pop recordings (Jenn Grant, Meaghan Smith, Jill Barber and several others) and collaborates regularly with other Canadian chamber musicians. The Blue Engine String Quartet was featured in “Quartet Plus Four at Christmas”, a New Scotland Productions Christmas Special for Vision TV and CBC. They were also featured in a BBC documentary film on the life of the late Dudley Moore, in which they perform, for Dudley himself, Moore’s one and only string quartet, written during his Oxford years.

In 2005, Blue Engine, along with singer Cliff Le Jeune and pianist Paul Simons, released their CD, “If it be your will…songs of Leonard Cohen”, a fifteen song collection of arrangements by Chris Palmer. The CD received rave reviews including one from Leonard Cohen himself who wrote, “Dear Colleagues, Thank you for this sublime gift”.

December 2009 was a busy month for Blue Engine, with the release of their second CD “Blue Engine String Quartet Christmas”. Also in December, the Quartet collaborated with Nova Scotian actor/writer Shelley Thompson for three Christmas performances entwining story telling with music for string quartet.

The Quartet has been busy in 2010-2011, performing in and around Halifax at the Music Room, and Pier 21. In May, clarinet virtuoso Mark Simons joined us for an evening of Klezmer Music in a sold-out Sir James Dunn Theatre. Blue Engine was featured at the 2011 Scotia Festival of Music, playing a few different roles: a rarely- heard Quartet by Smetana, the Mendelssohn Octet with the Super Nova Quartet, and a John Plante setting of Elizabeth Bishopʼs “Sandpiper” with the exquisite Suzie Leblanc.

In July, the Quartet played the music of a Twentieth Century Master- a special presentation of Philip Glass’s Fourth String Quartet with the composer himself in the front row. After the concert, Mr. Glass said to us “ as soon as I heard the first two chords, I knew it was going to be good!”

Our violist, Margot Aldrich has been on leave for the past year. For this performance, Laura Veeze is our guest violist.